A fence is a nice big visible thing for a politician to point to and say ‘look, we did something.’ It doesn’t do anything about people already here illegally or who continue to come on tourist or student visas and overstay illegally.
True that it does nothing for people that are already here, but keeping more out is a necessary first step and fences are proven to do the trick.
Or even those who bring a ladder or a rope with a grappling hook to climb over if the Dems sneak through a cut in the Border Patrol's budget for guarding the fence or even if an Obama appointee tells them to stop aggressive patrols.
The fence only works when guarded.
Of course you are right about those who already are here. They have tried to take some measures to track the overstays, but not enough. They are working on a system that would better track them. But the fence, where they have built pedestrian fence, does an excellent job of keeping people out. I think (and hope) what De Mint is trying to accomplish is to make DHS go back and build pedestrian fence in the places where they built vehicle barriers last year. There are more than 600 miles of fence, but much of it is vehicle fence, not the extremely effective pedestrian fence.
“A fence is a nice big visible thing for a politician to point to and say ‘look, we did something.’ It doesn’t do anything about people already here illegally or who continue to come on tourist or student visas and overstay illegally.”
You are correct, of course.
And the trick is to keep moving forward on all fronts and do what is politically possible.
Congress should not be allowed to let the continutation of the fence relax its action on total application of E-Verify, STIFF sanctions on employers, lease prohibitions relative to federally funded housing, etc.; and as you suggest, tourist and student tracking.
Winston Churchill said it right: “We will fight them on...”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2285551/posts